And Every Breath
by Be Summer Rain
Summary: The sort of thing that doesn't fade away.
1. Default Chapter

A/N: Each chapter of this "story" will really just be a one-shot drabble.

This particular one is in response to a challenge made by She's A Star about a year ago. Not that I'm slow at these things, or anything. But the various song credits are as follows:

Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen

Life Is Sweet, Natalie Merchant

Superstar, Tegan Sara

Down, Blink 182

Mad Season, Matchbox Twenty

I Miss You – Blink 182

**_And Every Breath_**

_And every breath we drew was hallelujah. _

It isn't autumn but the leaves are red. Sticky. It's quiet now, but the screaming is still echoing in my head. In everyone's head, probably. It's the sort of thing that doesn't fade away.

You're alive, she said quietly.

Yes.

The screaming and the screaming and the screaming. What I'd give for silence.

Is this the end?

Yes, he said again. It's over. I thought –

What did you think?

I thought you were gone.

No, she said, and took his hand. And every breath we drew was hallelujah.

_prisoner of what she cannot see. _

little girl on the stone. red hair damp and dirty, no longer a halo circling pale cheeks. a prisoner of what she cannot see. the shunned princess, the disheveled daisy queen. but maybe her prince will come to this locked castle. if she wants him to.

a little girl. maybe people would forget. eventually. she'd fade into legend, a myth. the one who was taken. the one they closed the school for. the one nobody rescued.

black hair and green eyes. don't be dead, please don't be dead…

_My whole life revolved around your absence. _

These days, my whole life revolves around your absence. I visit your grave twice a month. I don't bring flowers because you would have looked at me with that funny way you had. Crinkled your nose and said _Flowers, Hermione? Blimey, what are you thinking?_ So I don't bring flowers and I don't forget.

On the anniversary Harry and I visit your family. Even if we don't say much, I'm glad we go. We have to remember. If we don't, maybe you didn't exist.

It seems silly, in a way, all these rites and rituals. You never stood on ceremony yourself, but sometimes there just has to be a pattern. Something to hold on to.

I loved you, you know. Maybe I should have told you. Whispering it to stone just isn't the same. (Nothing is.)

_This awkward silence makes me crazy. _

"Hello," you said, and kept chewing on your pencil end, maybe because you know it bothers me.

"Hi," I replied. "Where's Harry?"

"It's late," you said, and pushed brown hair behind your ears. "He's in bed, isn't he?"

"I guess," I said, now feeling stupid for not having checked. But then you always made me feel stupid. I don't know if you realized it or not.

"So…" you said, looking up at me quizzically.

"Gotta study," I muttered, sinking uneasily onto the couch next to you, and a little too aware of where our knees touched. But you didn't move away. I cracked open my book and stared at the print without seeing it. This awkward silence makes me crazy, because some things shouldn't be awkward at all. Not this.

But then you glanced up at me and smiled, and I thought that some things might be okay, after all.

_We don't talk about the little things we do without. _

We don't talk about the little things we do without. We're careful to keep our conversations light, especially around Harry. We don't even talk about Ginny, though I wish we could. She was my friend too, even if Harry was the one who loved her.

But we don't talk about these things. We talk about school, and what we'll do when we graduate.

None of us know for sure.

_hello there, the angel from my nightmare._

when he closes his eyes he sees her. above his crib, singing. or reaching down in terror. he sees her falling. and he reaches out to catch her - his hand closes on empty air. his eyes shoot open and he stares into the darkness.

hello there, he says, breathing hard. the angel from my nightmares.

standing in the dark, singing.


	2. the Whispers

the Whispers

The air smells sweet; dangerous, somehow. Makes her think of roses after a funeral, left in heaps to rot. And this isn't what she came here to remember, but the daisies in her fist feel foolish now.

She kneels; the ground shouldn't be so cold, she thinks. Since it's nearly May. Springtime everywhere else. Bursting into blossom but she's falling to the ground.

The grass is dying. It doesn't make sense; there were caretakers, after all. And he had family. But then, she hadn't seen them since the funeral. Rains had come, and what had happened to the grass? Dying, dying, and she doesn't understand.

Whispers fall frozen to the earth. No. Please, no. Echoes of screams, shadows of silence and black. The silence was always worse than the screaming.

They said that he had died a hero. But nobody had told her that heroes had to die.

It's too cold, she finally decides. Brushes the dirt off of her knees. Tries to leave behind the pity and the whispers.

A tree had bloomed too early and dropped its buds. Everything too early these days. Tears fall into these torn petals, sweetly spun.


End file.
